GAME DAY 19: Oilers at Stars

Todd McLellan and his coaching staff marked something of a milestone in Los Angeles on Thursday, when they worked their one hundredth game together behind the Edmonton Oilers bench. It wasn’t an auspicious occasion, as the coach and his crew lost their fifth consecutive game, all in regulation, with a former McLellan specialty, the powerplay, getting burned for a shortie-against which stood up as the game-deciding goal.

But that game makes up just 1% of the growing sample of McLellan’s performance in Edmonton. The 100-game milestone is reason enough for us to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. How has the former San Jose bench boss delivered on the promise of experience and stability?

We will compare by setting the bar pretty much as low as possible by NHL standards, and compare the current head man to the several who preceded him in the same position. Call it the Coaching REL method.

We’ll start in 2009, which is when Edmonton’s last coach of truly long standing, Craig MacTavish, (temporarily) left the organization after nine years, eight seasons, and 656 regular season games at the helm. MacT is a poor comparable due to the duration of his service, during which among other things the league’s point system underwent a significant change, the salary cap was invoked, and the Oilers were even known to make the playoffs on occasion. Obviously a different era.

Since MacTavish moved along that spring of 2009, the club has seen 6 bench bosses, none of whom lasted longer than two years on the job. Pat Quinn lasted just one, coaching 82 games in 2009-10; Tom Renney managed 164 over the two seasons that followed; Ralph Krueger’s opportunity was a single lockout-abbreviated “season” and a mere 48 games before getting skyped; Dallas Eakins got 113 games in before becoming the only mid-season casualty in the bunch; and Todd Nelson finished up the 51 remaining games of that season with “interim coach” engraved in his name tag. (For ease of reference we will follow our source Hockey-Reference.com’s lead and credit Nelson with the five games he technically shared the bench with MacTavish right after the Silver Fox, GM Edition, had canned Eakins.) Now we have McLellan, the third guy of that group to reach triple digits, and the odds-on favourite to be the first since MacT to make it to 200.

Overall record:

It’s been a sorry history of failure right here in River City. Coaches come and go, the former with great hype and expectation, the latter generally with their tail between their legs. Of the six coaches under review here, the best results on a per-game basis were attained by Ralph Krueger back in 2013 when his Oilers posted a .469 points percentage, a mere 87 basis points below the league-wide rate of .556 under the cockamamie points system. McLellan’s .445 ranks second on this list. When considering straight wins, McLellan is the first coach on the list to achieve the 40% plateau, this against an overall league average of exactly 50%. Of course by this time tomorrow TMc could be back oin the shady side of 40% if his club doesn’t turn things around in Dallas tonight.

Here is a slightly different way of expressing results, “Point share”, or simply that percentage of points that Oilers collected of all points awarded in their games (which of course is usually 2 but sometimes 3). By this method 50.0% is the true break-even point, with all coaches lagging far below that. Krueger’s 42.1% is the best, in large part because he is the only coach to achieve a “result” (Win or Bettman Point) in as many as half of his games. Again, McLellan shows better than his more recent predecessors but isn’t exactly hitting it out of the park.

Goal share:

Again we see a high-water mark under Krueger, not quite 50% but at least tending in that direction. The club crashed out hard under Eakins, revived slightly under Nelson, and has taken another bump northward under McLellan. Offensive production remains an issue but under the new bench boss the club’s goal prevention has dropped below 3.00 GAA for the first time since, ahem, Krueger.

Shot share:

This is one area where the Oilers actually bottomed out under Krueger, and have gradually risen since. This is the underlying number that suggests to many that Krueger was “lucky” to get the point and goal results that he did. For his part, McLellan’s Oilers are at the best rate in years, even as they too remain below the minimum desriable 50% level.

Note that these are all shots in all situations, not merely even strength.

Special teams:

An important category where coaching has a huge impact. I’ve expressed everything as a conversion percentage; using McLellan as an example, the Oilers have connected on 17.9% of their powerplay opportunities, but given up shorthanded goals on 2.8% of them for a net percentage of 15.1%. Similarly the penalty kill has been successful 82.2% of the time, and have even scored a shortie themselves on 2.3% of their kills for a net success rate of 84.5%. Add up the raw special teams percentages in the manner of PDO yields a “Bowman Index” (as introduced by legendary coach Scotty Bowman) of 100.1 for McLellan — basically break even. The right-most column adds the two net percentages in a similar fashion.

Ralph Krueger shows up as a wizard of special teams, having the second best powerplay percentage, the best penalty kill rate, and the best results for shorthanded goals on both sides of the equation. His net special teams percentage of 105.5 towers above the rest. On the flip side, Dallas Eakins’ terrible powerplay results, further marred by a brutal record of allowing shorties, appears to be a key reason for the failure of his regime. For his part Todd McLellan slides in behind Krueger with results that can best be described as “competent”.

Takeaway:

The Oilers under Todd McLellan have made small steps in the right direction but there is still a long way to go. A season-over-season recap of the new bench boss would show him in a better light, other than that woeful powerplay (which colleague David Staples discussed in detail here). He clearly has had the best results of any coach since Ralph Krueger, who in retrospect didn’t get a fair shake.

Of course none of these results occurred in a vacuum. Pat Quinn had zero top draft picks in his stable and Jeff Deslauriers as his primary goaltender. The team was constantly in flux throughout those years. Only Todd McLellan, however, has had the benefit of the generational talent that is Connor McDavid. Should he be doing more with the opportunity? A valid question, and one which Oilers fans will surely get an extended opportunity to evaluate.

Tonight’s game:

As the slumping Oilers take to Dallas for a 17:00 MDT start, McLellan is performing significant surgery on his line-up.

Kris Russell, Matt Hendricks and Drake Caggiula all draw in after injury, while Eric Gryba, Tyler Pitlick Mark Letestu and Benoit Pouliot all take a seat in the press box. Lines and pairings are uncertain as of this writing. Anton Lander has cleared waivers and will report to Bakersfield.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Market to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.